


SAIKYO: Tiger!

by Hans_Gonk



Category: Street Fighter
Genre: 1970s, Action/Adventure, Alternate History, Comedy, Drama, F/M, Fantasy, Gangs, Gen, Martial Arts, Prequel, Thailand, muay thai
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-03-27 22:52:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13890831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hans_Gonk/pseuds/Hans_Gonk
Summary: Set fifteen years before the first Street Fighter game, Dan Hibiki's father: Go Hibiki, is tasked with being a teacher and wants to mentor the prideful and aggressive Muay Thai fighter Sagat, solely because he sees great potential within the young fighter and the fact that his Muay Thai instructor is very corrupt and cruel.To make matters worse, the school has associations and sponsors with a powerful mafia that has sinister intentions with both Go and Sagat. If it couldn't get any worse, Go is also in a race against time, as his wife is in Hong Kong and is nine months pregnant and their child could be born at any minute. Man, I don't even want to imagine the ulcers Go is having right now!It's a story filled with tension, suspense, laughter and many other things that I hope you the reader feels while reading it! But will you feel it!? Will Go Hibiki make it out okay!? Well I guess you got to read to find out!





	1. The Tengu Soars

**Author's Note:**

> The names of the characters will be the ones used in the international versions of Street Fighter and not their original Japanese names.

            November 19th, 1972. The school of Ansatsuken has traveled across the world to fight many students of varying different styles of martial arts as part of their test to utilized on what they had learned. Currently they’re in a jungle within Thailand, challenging the mysterious, yet prestigious Muay Thai school called “Pha-Yak.”

            The students fight in a square ring without any ropes and on a smooth stone floor. The ring is in front of the hastily-made school building and in-between the ring and building are the students playing the traditional Muay Thai music. Students among both schools sit on the grass alongside the ring. Pha-Yak’s prodigy student: the 16-year-old Sagat is currently standing in the ring. He has a full set of sienna-colored hair, uniformed with a mongkol and trunks of the school’s colors that are a predominate white and red striping with only the roping of the mongkol being a sandy-gold color.

            The master of Ansatsuken, Goutetsu, sits between his grandchildren: an injured 27-year-old Gouken, who has his adopted 8-year-old son Ryu by his side, and the 23-year-old Akuma. Despite having his iconic red spiky hair, Akuma’s skin complexion isn’t too tanned, eyes aren’t glowing red (they are naturally white with dark brown-irises and black pupils) and his gi is entirely white.

            Akuma gets up, and enters in the ring. He is mildly impressed with the height of the Sagat, especially for his age. He stands at 7’3” (221 cm), Akuma must turn his head up to stare at Sagat’s expressionless face that’s darkened as the bright sun is behind his head. His shadow nearly blankets Akuma in height, but not in width. Sagat retains his blank expression as he does the ritualistic dance. Akuma rolls his eyes at the dancing, annoyed with the many traditions that are used within Muay Thai. Akuma gets into his stance, and after the song is over, as does Sagat.

            Sagat retains his position, motioning his stance to the rhythm of the current song that’s playing. Akuma immediately rushes up to him, aiming to punch his gut. Sagat takes one step forward and quickly elbows the top of Akuma’s head then quickly takes a step back. Akuma stumbles to the right of Sagat and instantly attempts to hit him with a round house kick, of which Sagat grabs Akuma’s foot with his left hand, and simultaneously hits Akuma with his right elbow and knee into his back and chest. Without hesitation, Sagat grabs the collars of Akuma’s gi and tosses the 5’10 (178 cm) man over him tossing him at the end of the ring landing on his back. Sagat steps back to his starting position, but keeps his sight and stance in the direction of where Akuma landed.

            Akuma gets up seething in anger, yet despite his rage, he has very concentrated breathes. He’s focusing ki energy within both of his hands. He thrusts both his palms toward Sagat, shouting: _Hadoken_ , launching a spherical blue projectile that has an image of his palms. Sagat stares at the fast moving Hadoken not sure what to make of it, and he gets hit by it in the waist. Sagat rubs his waist and his faces squinting in pain a bit. Sagat walks over to Akuma while keeping his stance to the rhythm of the music. Akuma launches more Hadokens, and Sagat swerves left and right to avoid them. Sagat pounces his body lunging his knee out towards as he shouts: _Tiger Knee!_ Akuma focuses on his Hadoken slightly longer than his others. His gi turns into a slight shade of gray and summons a purple Hadoken countering Sagat’s Tiger Knee knocking Sagat to a sitting position. Goutetsu sighs in disappointment at Akuma.

            Akuma leaps up in the air and summons two of his purple Hadokens at Sagat. Sagat rolls backwards to avoid both Hadokens, with the second one only missing him by an inch. As Akuma is at the prime ascent of his jumping arc, Sagat leaps up and lifts his right leg hitting Akuma in the gut with the palm of his right foot. Sagat rotates his foot to position his body facing to the descent of Akuma’s arc and sinks his heel into Akuma’s abdomen. Sagat lowers his right leg with great force, slamming Akuma’s back to the stone ground. Sagat aggressively takes a few steps back as Akuma staggers to get up. Sagat quickly thrusts his knee into Akuma’s jaw, grabs his hair and repeatedly pushes his face into his interchanging knees a few times. Sagat lets go of Akuma’s hair and roundhouse kicks the side of his head with his left shin causing Akuma to be pushed to the side as his body spins in the air and lands on the ground laying on his stomach. Sagat takes a step back and returns to his stance.

            Akuma gets up shaking, punches the stone floor causing it to crack, and his clothing gets even darker. Goutetsu stands up.

            “Akuma!” Goutetsu shouts. “That is enough!” Akuma doesn’t comply and continues his attempt to slowly stand up.

            “I’m not finished master!” Akuma responds. “I can still defeat this brat!”

            “Can you?”

            As Akuma gets on his feet and tries to extend his knees upward, he collapses to the ground. Akuma begrudgingly crawls off the ring and sits next to his master. The school of Pha-Yak cheers and applauds Sagat’s victory. Their head teacher stands and approaches Goutetsu. The teacher is a massive 47-year-old man dressed like his students, standing at 8’2” (250 cm) tall, and has very large muscles weighing at 400 lbs. (181 kg). He has long, dark gray curly hair covering his entire back, and a long dark gray beard that covers his pectoral muscles in length. He has varying degree of scars everywhere, consisting both of slashes and bullets. Both his hands and feet have sharp claw-like nails.

            The teacher stares down at Goutetsu who shows no fear or impression of his awe-inspiring build. The teacher grins showcasing his teeth that are sharp like fangs of a tiger. His green eyes in the shadow has a certain natural glow to them.

            “So,” said the teacher, crossing his arms, “is that all this ‘mighty’ Ansatsuken school has to offer?”

            “Not quite Arjan Ukrit.” Goutetsu answered the teacher. “There is still one more opponent your student has to face.”

“What? The little kid?” Arjan Ukrit points to Ryu, who hides behinds Gouken in fear and shyness. Ukrit and the entire class laughs except for Sagat, who just raises his brow at the young Ryu.

            “You have a sense of humor Arjan Ukrit. You will come to like our student when he arrives.”

            “Come on master!” said Akuma. “There is no way our cousin Go Hibiki is going to defeat that kid! We might as well forfeit right now!”

            “As talented as Go is,” said Gouken to Goutetsu, “he’s still not here. We have already defeated most of the students. He needs to be punished for constantly being late to our fights.” Goutetsu rubs his beard.

            “The question is: who’s truly being punished for his tardiness?” Goutetsu chuckles.

            Two hours has passed, the sky dimmed, and the Pha-Yak students all looked bored. Ryu sleeps on Gouken’s lap, Goutetsu meditates, and Akuma attempts to do so, but keeps mumbling insults to everyone, of which Goutetsu takes notice and whacks Akuma with his staff. Arjan Ukrit growls, and stands up in frustration.

            “Where the hell is your student Goutetsu!?!” Shouted Arjan Ukrit. “Is he even real? Is this some game you’re playing with us? You know you shouldn’t pull the tail of a tiger!”

            “And you shouldn’t doubt the wisdom of a dragon.” Goutetsu responds. Arjan Ukrit rolls his eyes.

            “It’s almost dinner time! We don’t have to deal with this!” The students stand up and are about to enter in the building. Sagat doesn’t move however. “Come on Sagat! Get inside!”

            “No!” Sagat responded. “I shall wait for this opponent! I’ll wait fifteen years to face him! Even if it’s all an illusion. I will not disgrace the school of Pha-Yak!” Arjan Ukrit doesn’t answer right away.

            “Alright, fine, we’ll proceed to wait.” The students moaned and went back to where they sat. Ukrit mumbles: “Like hell I will wait fifteen years though.”

            Shortly after, a man wearing a tengu mask pops his head out of a bush near Akuma.

            “Oh hey, is it my turn yet?” asked the man in the tengu mask. “I was having a nice nap.”

            “You were here the entire time Go!?” yelled Akuma at the man with the tengu mask in anger and astonishment.

            “Yes.” Go stands up and gets out of the bush.

            “Did you know Go was here the entire time?” Gouken asked Goutetsu.

            “Of course.” Goutetsu grins.

            Go Hibiki takes off his tengu mask, and he mirrors his future son almost exactly. He’s a 24-year-old man in an orange gi with a black shirt under it, with black hair without a cowlick, horseshoe mustache, and has a very long nose, resembling his mask.

            “Sorry for snoozing off Grandpa!” Go said to Goutetsu. He proceeds to speak louder as walks alongside the ring “Muay Thai is a very boring martial art! It’s ninety percent dancing and ten percent flailing limbs while wearing short-shorts.” The Pha-Yak students give Go unpleasant stares. Go stares at Sagat. “So, we’re fighting tall grade-school students or something?”

            “You can’t possibly be my opponent!” Sagat called out Go in disbelief.

            “And with your adorable face, you can’t possibly be older than five! But you know,” Go picks up Ryu and shows him to Sagat, “here’s this little fella! He seems to be about your age and cuteness!” Sagat is about to throw a punch, but Go quickly puts Ryu back on Gouken’s lap. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Go gestures to stop, which Sagat did. “What about the dancing!?”

            Sagat groans and takes a few steps back. He nods to the band, and they start playing the music. Sagat proceeds to dance.

            “Ah yes, music to my ears!” Go sarcastically compliments.

            Go also does some dance moves, but he’s shaking his hips, turns around shaking his butt, and pelvic thrusts. Sagat is getting agitated at Go’s dance, and making more fierce motions. When the song ends, Sagat gets to his stance.

            “For real kid,” said Go, as he gives a thumb up, “good luck!”

            Sagat roars at Go’s gesture since a thumb up is an obscene gesture in Thailand. He instantly utilizes his Tiger Knee at Go, but misses as Go casually stakes a step to the side dodging with a smug grin. Sagat does this repeatedly, and Go proceeds to do the same thing. Sagat heavily breathes like he’s tiring out. Go turns to his peers.

            “You guys aren’t leaving me with sloppy seconds, right?” Go facetiously asks.

            “Screw you!” shouted Akuma.

            As Go wasn’t looking Sagat runs up to Go about to punch him, and Go, not even turning around, steps aside, and trips Sagat to the ground with his foot. Sagat immediately gets up, attempting to kick Go with his right shin. Go pushes it aside with the back of left hand casually saying:

            “No.” Sagat does it with other leg and Go does the same with his other hand. “No.” Sagat tries to hit his head with his right elbow, and Go simply pushes Sagat back with his index finger causing Sagat to fumble back a bit “No.” Sagat tries to Go again with his left shin and Go successfully counters, “You already used that.” Of which Go proceeds to grab the shin and toss Sagat to the side. “Okay, okay.” Go shows of his right arm flexing his bicep. “Fight starts now, right?”

            Sagat shouts at Go charging at him. Go focuses his ki on his right hand only, and when Sagat gets close, Go thrusts his right hand forward shouting _Hadoken_ and summons a blue Hadoken at Sagat’s head causing him to lose his hair and knocking him back. Sagat touches his head shocked that he lost his hair.

            “Aye,” said Go, “at least you don’t look a child anymore, you look like a grandpa!” Sagat lunges back up of which Go knees him in the groin. Sagat gets on fours, and Go sits on his back. “Say!” Go brings out a book. “It says here,” Go puts pages of the book right in front of Sagat’s face, “that Muay Thai is the martial art for infant lesbians!” Sagat bites into the pages and shaking the book like a dog and spits it out. “Kid, the Japanese translation of _The Grapes of Wrath_ isn’t meant to be taken literally.” Then go rubs chin “Wait. It is literature, so is it?” Sagat shouts in rage and charges at Go again. “Okay, this is getting boring. Let’s wrap this up!” Go jumps in the air yelling “Yahoo!” and hits Sagat in the eyes with a jabbing blue Hadoken in the eyes.

            Sagat’s vision gets progressively blurry to the point where he’s not being able to see anything. Sagat sweats and freaks out over his blindness.

            “W-what have you done to me!? I-I can’t see! **WHERE ARE THE HELL ARE YOU, YOU CLOWN OF A DEVIL!?!** ” Sagat wails his limbs everywhere, moving around frantically.

            “Damn!” Go genuinely uttered, not meaning to blind him. Sagat starts flailing his limbs around almost hitting the other students. Go sighs and rushes up to Sagat and crosses his arms. “Hissho!” Go punches Sagat in the gut, then hits it with his knee. He crouches down, punches Sagat’s thighs twice, stands up and round house kicks him. Go sweeps Sagat by crouching down and quickly spinning his leg. Sagat fumbles a bit, but he retains his balance, and Go then proceeds to hit Sagat with a vertical chop at his chest. During all these furry of attacks Go was constantly shouting “Ora, ora, ora!” Go finishes it off with hitting Sagat’s stomach with his elbow, and then thrusting it in his abdomen shouting “Buraiken!” Sagat stumbles a few steps forward and falls to the ground laying on his chest. Sagat blinks rapidly and regains his vision.

            The Pha-Yak school walks into building silently not helping Sagat to stand up. Sagat slowly gets up, and looks absolutely horrified as he as he slowly and reluctantly walks into the building himself. The Ansatsuken School walks up to Go. They bow, and Go does the same.

            “I can’t believe it!” said Akuma in shock. “H-He didn’t even hit you once!”

            “Yeah,” Gouken also impressed, “looks like your comedy tactics finally paid off!”

            Goutetsu takes off his holy beaded necklace and puts it over Go.

            “W-wait!” Go uttered in surprise, “Y-you’re not implying that I-I’m-?”

            “Yes, my grandson.” Goutetsu answered, “You are now the master of Ansatsuken.”

            “Since when you were you also a comedian, master?” asked Akuma.

            “He’s being serious brother.” Gouken responded. “Go has mastered both the technique and social tactics of Ansatsuken.”

            “Grandpa,” said Go, “I’m truly honored, I mean it! But surely it belongs to Gouken. He’s very talented, wise and controls his composure just fine. Heck, he seems to be a pretty good teacher to Ryu.”

            “While Gouken is talented,” Goutetsu explained, “he didn’t grasp the social aspect of battle. Yes, he does have great technique and composure. But you have never met Sagat in your life, yet you managed to exploit the fighter’s psyche just with your charisma alone. That’s why I brought you all here as your final destination of our world tour. Muay Thai is the perfect rival to our martial art of Shotokan. You must use all three disciples of technique, composure and charisma carefully, and you Go, have done so, hence why you won.”

            “I understand grandpa. It’s just that I don’t want to pursue Ansatsuken any further. I do deeply appreciate what you and my mother had taught me, but I feel it’s too dangerous to teach my soon-to-be born child the art.” Go takes off the necklace and offers it back to Goutetsu.

            “I understand your fears Go. Every day I fear one of you will succumb to the Dark Hadou. I ever fear that your mother could still succumb to it…” Go lowers his arm holding the necklace when Goutetsu has a troubled look. Goutetsu shakes his head and looks focused. “Anyway, you still want to be a martial arts instructor?”

            “Yes. It’s something I always wanted, second only to starting a family.”  

            “Then keep the necklace. You have a new test my grandson. You don’t need to teach your students Ansatsuken. Being a teacher is a completely different skill than being a fighter. Since family is what you deeply care about, don’t think of the necklace as the symbol of Ansatsuken but as the symbol of our family.” Go Hibiki bows and puts his fist to his palm.

            “I accept your test grandpa!” Go puts the necklace back on. “I will not fail you!”

            “Well,” said Gouken, “we better get going. Our flight is in two hours.”

            “You guys go without me. I’ll stay here a little longer.”

            “Wait, why?”

            “I want to test my teaching skills to that Sagat kid. He has a lot of potential, he could be the best fighter in the world, but hot damn he needs to chill.”

            “Well, be sure you can get in contact with your wife.”

            “Of course I will keep in touch with her! She’s nine months pregnant! No way will I ever miss the birth of my child!”

            “I wish you the best of luck then, Master Hibiki” Goutetsu bowed.

            “My dad would love to hear you say that gramps!” Go smugly grins.

            “Don’t give him ideas!” Goutetsu laughs as he lightly punches Go’s chest.

            “Finally,” Akuma said in relief, “I don’t have to suffer Go’s snoring anymore-OW!” Ryu kicked Akuma in the shin. Akuma growled as the others laughed.


	2. The Tiger Roars

            The sun as set, Go Hibiki returns to the Pha-Yak school area. He hides in the foliage of the bushy surroundings, getting near to the school building. He eavesdrops to listen what’s going on in the school. The first things he hears is something getting smashed.

            “ **DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH OF A FOOL YOU MADE US LOOK TODAY!?!** ” Ukrit shouted.

            Go gets up and tries to peer through at one of the windows. He sees Sagat sitting in front of a circle of students, as Ukrit is standing up next to a broken table.

            “How could you…!?!?!” Ukrit continued. “How could you lose to that…!? That…!? That clown!?!?! What do you think our rivals are going think of us!? What do you think the WORLD is going to think of us!?” Sagat doesn’t answer and is breathing through his nose heavily, looking down at the ground. Ukrit grabs Sagat’s jaw to have him stare right into his eyes. “ **ANSWER ME!!!** ”

            “I don’t know!!!” Sagat answered hysterically. “I don’t know, okay!!!” Ukrit lets go of him and turns his back toward him.

            “This will not go unpunished. The whole world will know of this.” Ukrit turns back to Sagat, grabs his neck and drags Sagat outside. The students follow, and Go goes back to hiding in the bush. Ukrit tosses Sagat across the ring and points at him. “Stay down!” Ukrit turns to his students. “Boys, we need to teach our little disappointment a lesson. I want you to give him hell! Our little praises got over his head! Let him feel our pain! Remind him on what happens when you bring back failure!”

            The students walk onto the ring, and start stomping, dropping their knees, punching, on Sagat. This goes on for five minutes. When the students are done, they spat on him. Ukrit walks up to Sagat, and stomps on his head with all his might. Sagat screams in pain, and Ukrit twists his foot, adding extra pressure.

            “You will not be given food and water for a week!” Ukrit told Sagat. He lets his foot go of him. Two older students pick him up. “In addition, notice how those reckless Ansatsuken fighters messed up our ring!” The ring has cracks and chunks broken off. “You’re the one going to fix it!” Ukrit points to buckets of cement nearby. “You will use cement to remedy it! But get it done quickly! If the cement dries up! That’s an extra week without food and water!” The older students tie up two blades on the upper arms of Sagat that point do his armpits. “You will carry two buckets at a time, and yes. That’s includes carrying the trowel too! Get it done before sunrise, or I’ll outright disown you!” The older students let Sagat go who drops to his knees while carefully getting his arms spread out. “ **NOW GET TO IT**!” Ukrit and the students walk back into the building.

            Go could not believe what just happened. He has seen strict teachers before, including Goutetsu, but never anything of this extreme. Even in the dim lighting of the evening, Go can identify the blood and bruises that were caused by the students and Ukrit. He felt bad for the poor kid, wanting to help him right away. He logically can’t, it would escalate matters even worse.

            Sagat starts doing the chore, picking up the trowel and two buckets. When Sagat tried to carry two buckets with one hand, the blade was poking his armpit a bit, causing irritation. He had to carry the buckets with both hands instead. Trying to pave cement was an awkward feat. Sagat must spread his free arm straight up as he tries to intricately spread the cement. No matter how careful Sagat is, eventually both blades pierce his armpits causing him to screech in pain. Go cringes at the sight, already being uncomfortable with what’s going on as is. Sagat notices the cement in the buckets are getting dry, and tries to get the job done faster. He brings two other buckets along running up to the ring. not caring that the blades are dipping into his skin again. Sagat must do a lot of fast movements: crouching down, getting up to one place to another, and crouching down again, spread the cement quickly. Within a few hours Sagat is almost done, but he can’t complete it. He fainted due to fatigue and blood loss. Go peaked inside the building and sees that everyone is asleep. Go rushes to the ring and finishes Sagat’s chore and drags him deeper into the jungle.

            The next morning, Sagat wakes up and notices there’s an assortment of fruit in front of him. He looks around to see if anyone’s watching, and quickly munches on the fruit. Sagat gets hit in the head by a chico fruit, and he looks up sees Go sitting on a tree.

            “Good morning!” greeted Go. He slides down on the tree. “How you like the breakfast in bed?” Sagat is enraged at the sight of Go and immediately attempts to roundhouse kick him. Go ducks and picks up the chico fruit he threw. “Hey, are you going to eat this?” Sagat attempts to kick him again, but Go swiftly dodges it causing Sagat to chop down a tree. He chases Go across the short open area, constantly missing Go and chopping down trees. When Sagat chopped down another tree he got hit by it, and a monkey landed on him punching his head. Sagat tosses the monkey aside. “Come on kid! I gave you food and I finished the job for you, why do you hate me?”

            “Because my problems aren’t your business!” Sagat responded and throws a punch at Go of which he just grabs it and holds on to it.

            “Uh, yeah. I’m not taking that as an answer.” Go releases Sagat’s fist.

            “Just leave me alone!” Sagat tries to hit the side of Go’s neck with his shin, but Go also grabs that as well.

            “No.”

            “Don’t you start that again!”

            “Well elaborate boy! Then I’ll leave you be!” Go pushes Sagat’s shin to the side. Sagat groans.

            “Just ever since you came here, you ruined everything! I was loved by my peers! But then you defeated me! Not even a proper warrior’s defeat! A humiliating defeat! You made a mockery of me and my school!”

            “It’s not my fault.” Go said in a serious tone. “No matter what kind of defeat you receive, they’ll treat you like trash no matter what. But, you did give a clearer explanation. I’ll leave you alone.” Go walks away from the school area.

            Sagat stares at Go briefly and punches a tree next to him, which causes three chico fruits fall, hit his head, and moments after, another monkey landed on his head. Sagat angrily moved his eyes looking at the monkey, and the monkey crawls off Sagat with a nervous smirk. Sagat walks back to his school and an older student approaches him.

            “Good work on fixing the ring Sagat.” The older student congratulated as he unties the blades around Sagat’s upper arms. “But you cannot enter inside the building.”

            “What!? Why?” Sagat asked in surprise.

            “Ukrit is still very angry with you. He even changed his mind. You will get not get food and water for a month.”

            “Are you kidding me!? This is insane!”

            “He felt he spoiled you too much. He did train you for ten years and yet you failed to defeat a clown.” Sagat got enraged and pushed the older student to a tree nearby.

            “Well! Let’s you see you take on the damn clown then!!!”

            “I-it was not my words! It was Ukrit’s!” Sagat lets go of him.

            “You talk about me not progressing? This school hasn’t progressed in the last ten years…”

            Sagat leaves the school area, and Go Hibiki is still spying on him within the bushes. Sagat walked for a good mile (an estimated kilometer and a half) entering in a Buddhist temple, that has a large statue of Buddha laying on his side. Sagat sits in front of large statue and meditates. Go is pleased on what Sagat is doing, seeing a more peaceful and calm side of him. Go has hope in the young fighter. He decides to really leave Sagat alone this time, giving respect to his peace of mind and to the temple.

            Go enters to the school area again. All the students are sparring outside, however, Ukrit isn’t there, which gives Go the idea to sneak into the building. Go notices that the building has a bit of an age to it, with plants and roots went through the walls and floors everywhere. In addition of the lack of proper lighting, this gives plenty of places for Go to hide in, and decides to hide behind a gigantic root. Go sees Ukrit is sitting with a couple of men in business suits, all gambling and playing mahjong.

            “Sakda!” Ukrit said to one of the men. “That disappointment of an adopted son of mine was facing a couple of Japanese nobodies yesterday. At first, he was doing amazing! He kicked their asses like it was nothing. BUT the worst possible thing happened! He lost to a despicable clown who was late on purpose! HELL, he wasn’t even late! He was sleeping! Wasting our damn time! If I wasn’t infertile I’d birth a real man I’m telling you!”

            Sakda takes his Cuban cigar out of his mouth and puffs out smoke. He’s a short overweight man, wearing a white business suit, and aviator sun glasses. He has black hair with a large bald spot, and a thick mustache. Wears many golden necklaces, and has rings of many different jewelry on every single finger, including his thumbs.

            “Ukrit,” said Sakda, “it’s time to get with the times. He was likely taking some of that uh, L.S.D.” Go silently chuckled at that accusation. “These days, everyone’s doing drugs. Here’s what I don’t get. I don’t see why you care so much about this fight between your adopted boy and a couple of hippy foreigners. You got on top while you were in your prime. When you die, nobody’s going to remember of you as the loser that got his assed kicked by a clown druggie. You see, I constantly know what’s going down in this country, and my friend, now way in hell people aren’t going to see you in a bad light. At least not in a way where I can’t take care of them personally, you know what I’m saying?”

            “I know people are going to always love me in Thailand!” said Ukrit. “But I want the world to love me, and that clown is going to spread it to all his butt buddies in Japan about how he kicked my best student’s ass!”

            “Alright, alright. I get your point. Listen up, the boys at the chem-lab are cooking up some experimental stuff to compete against rival Muay Thai schools, and believe me. I’m sparing no expense. This the highest quality available. In addition, how you like this? I’m going to find that clown, arrange a rematch between him and your boy, but this time, we’re going to inject him with the stuff we’re cooking. Anabolic Steroids.”

            “Hmm… That’s a great idea Sakda! Is that the same stuff those body builders are using these days?”

            “Exactly that stuff.”

            “Hahahaa! Oh, this is going to be good. But, there is one simple problem. Sagat is still kind of on that whole Buddhist nonsense. He might not to take the drugs.”

            “Well if he isn’t going to take them, he’s a worthless little runt that should be disposed of. Don’t even worry about getting your hands dirty.” The other men in business suits bring out revolvers. “We’ll take care of it.”

            “Ahahahahaaa! This is why I love doing business with you!”

            Go is shocked to hear all of this. In fact, he is appalled, enraged.

            _“What a bunch of heartless bastards!”_  Go said in his thoughts in utter disgust. _“Sagat has to know about this, one way or the other.”_ Go peaks through the window above him and sees the sun is setting. _“I’ll have to put that on hold temporarily. I got some other important business to take care of personally.”_

            A few hour later, Go is in Nonthaburi by a payphone going to call his wife. Go is trying to get change out of his pocket but he realized none of his currency isn’t going to work on a Thai payphone. As Go is looking as his coins on his palm, a man added a few satangs on it. Go looked at the man who gave him the satangs, and it was a man with black mullet and goatee in a red business suit with round sunglasses.

            “Danny Masters!!!” Go is overjoyed to see the man in the suit, hugging him. Danny hugged Go back. “What are you doing here you nut?” The two let go of the hugging embrace.

            “I should be asking that to you.” said Danny. “But, Gouken filled me in what’s going on. He knew you’d be missing something important, and ya can’t get back to Hong Kong with a couple of coins y’know.”

            “Hahaha! Yeah that’s true. He’s one caring cousin. Well, uh, anyway how’s your boy Ken doing?”

            “He’s doing fine. I just sent him off to Japan to train under Gouken. Giving that boy proper discipline and not be exposed to crap like Dim Mak.”

            “ _You_ care about proper discipline?”

            “Yeah, he ain’t going to get inherit my business that easily. That boy’s gotta know what hardship is or he’ll truly be exploited by a bunch of chumps.”

            “I guess Ansatsuken can help on that. An odd thing to do so.  

            “WELLL, it’s also to give the boy a little culture and that all good stuff. Anyway, enough of me dude, how are ya doing training that Muay Thai punk?”

            “Not well Danny. His school is evil! All those students who whine and complain about their masters are truly taking it for granted.”

            ‘Whoa, whoa, what’s going on over there?” Go explains Danny everything. “Damn, that Arjan jerk is a real bitch.”

            “His name isn’t Arjan, that’s his title, like sensei.”

            “Well, whatever. This Ukrap guy is a real bastard.”

            “Yeah! It’s one thing to punish your students! I still feel grandpa’s tough love.” Go shudders as he rubs his butt. “It’s not how you treat a student who fails! Sagat truly did his best to kick my ass, and not once did they explain to him on why he failed and how he can improve!”

            “In addition to working with the mob and consider killing him.”

            “Right! I really got to warn Sagat about what his Arjan is planning. It’s just that he won’t believe me! he really thinks I’m the cause for all of his problems.”

            “Hm… I think I got an idea.” Danny whispers into Go’s ear, telling him his plan.

            “Why are you whispering in my ear? None of his students are here! But that is a great idea! I’m going to try that!”

            The next morning at the Pha-Yak school. Sagat wakes up from his slumber on the stone ring. A student walks up to him.

            “Sagat,” said the student, “you’re allowed to enter in the building now.”

            “Is it true?” asked Sagat.

            “Yeah, Ukrit calmed down.”

            Sagat enters in the school building and-

            “ **GOOD** **MORNING SAGAT!** ” greeted Go dressed in the school’s uniform

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading the current chapter of Saikyo: Tiger! I hoped you enjoyed it.
> 
> If you're in a helping mood, I'm in a search for a beta reader at the moment. Just someone to look over the drafts of the chapters and give their thoughts and suggestions on what they think. Looking over for spelling and grammatical errors is appreciated.
> 
> If you want to be the beta reader for this fanfiction all you need is a good understanding of the Street Fighter Lore (which I assume you have, or otherwise, why are you here!?) and a good sense of humor.
> 
> If you're up for the task, either send me a private message or make a comment and we can discuss from there.


	3. Go learn!

“GET OUT!” Sagat shouted upon seeing Go.

“No can do!” Go rejected. “We’re colleagues now!” Sagat is grinding his teeth breathing heavily.

“Y-WH-I-WHAT YOU-I WIL-H,“ Sagat aggressive muttering, “HOW THE HELL DID YOU BECOME A STUDENT!?!?!”

“Well, it went down like this.”

* * *

Several hours earlier, Ukrit is in the building getting up from his slumber. As he stands up and walks, he bumped into someone. He looked down and he sees a smiling Go Hibiki.

“What the-!?” Ukrit when he first sees Go. “You’re still here!?!?” Other students wake up from Ukrit’s shout. “What the hell do you want you clown!?”

“You see,” Go explains, “I came to a realization: Muay Thai isn’t that bad, in fact, I came to appreciate it more than Ansatsuken.” Ukrit was skeptical but amused at the same time. He crosses his arm.

“Yet you insulted it!”

“Of course, I was! I was kissing my school’s ass!”

“Uh, okay, well that doesn’t explain why you’re here...”

“I’m here because I want to be your student!”

“WHAT!? Why the hell should I take you under my wing? How do I know you’re not infiltrating just to learn our secrets?”

“Uh, because I’m going to share with you the secrets of Ansatsuken, duh. Look, Ansatsuken is truly the lamer art. The fact I have to rely on being a circus act to defeat your most talented student is rather silly, don’t you think? Muay Thai is a martial art with history, honor, and embraces on what martial arts is: violence! Am I wrong?”

Ukrit pondered and decided. “Alright. I don’t usually take in foreigners, but us Thai and Japanese are friends after all.” Ukrit roughly pats Go’s back. “So why the hell not? Welcome to Pha-Yak my boy!”

* * *

“You have to be kidding me…” Sagat rubs his head, having a migraine.

“I’m not kidding you! We’re going to get to know each other quite a bit  and become best friends! Perhaps I can even teach you a few things!”

“IN HELL WILL YOU EVER LECTURE ME ON ANYTHING!!!” The students from inside the building are walking outside.

“Ooo! What are we doing?”

“Themorningspar” Sagat mumbled crossing his arms.

“Okay that’s a bit odd. I would think exercising comes first, but hey! It can be fun!”

“I am not sparring with you!”

“I never said we have to be.” Go gives a smug grin. Sagat scowls and attempts to ask any passing-by students.

“Makok, let's have a spar!”

“Oh uh,” Makok nervously responds, “Didn’t we uh, um, have a spar yesterday?”

“Yeah.” Sagat looks down at him and grits his teeth. “You were the one that stomped my testicles when I was on the ground.”  
Makok sweats in fear and turns to the side. “UH HEY! Decha! Why don’t we spar!?” Makok runs off. Sagat continues to ask students for a spar, but they all nervously walk away.

“Oh wowie!” Go berates. “It looks like I get to spar with the mighty Sagat!” Sagat grabs Go by his beaded necklace.

“Listen here! I have enough crap to deal with and you’re only going to make it worse. Understand? So, get off my back and leave!” Sagat lets go of Go.

“Let me make you a deal. I’ll leave, if you can land one, single punch on me. No kicks, it must be your fists.”

“You didn’t keep your promise last time.”

“Well, that’s interpretive. That’s of the moment.  I’ll leave you alone, but this time, if you can land a punch on me, I’ll leave Thailand and never come back. Not just leaving it for a minute, an hour… For life.”

Sagat rubs his chin. “Alright. Let’s spar.”

Both Sagat and Go get within their fighting stances. Sagat focuses his sight on Go, waiting for him to do something first. Go hasn’t made a single movement other than the bouncing motions of his stance. After a minute has passed, Sagat rushes up to Go delivering a punch. Go brings out a newspaper from his pants and reads it. Sagat jumps back surprised at the unexpected act, thus making him fumble forward.

Go hops on Sagat’s back, sitting on it like a bench. “Hm, let’s see what’s going on within the world. OH That’s right! I can’t read Thai!” Go shoves the newspaper in front of Sagat’s face. “Can you read it for me!?”

Sagat gets aggravated and tries to get Go off of him. Go rides Sagat like a bull, using the newspaper as his reins. The students stared at Go riding Sagat and laughed. This only infuriates Sagat more and starts biting into the paper, ripping it out. Go rolls down on Sagat’s back and then rolls on the floor between his legs. He lays down with his arms behind his head.

“You read the politics section didn’t you?” Go snarked.

Sagat stomps at Go only to miss as Go quickly rolls backward into the crowd. Sagat charges into the crowd and everyone runs away. In front of Sagat is a large, angry tiger. Sagat scowls and shouts at the tiger, scaring it to the point of running away. Sagat turns around and sees the students, of which they immediately step aside and continuing their spar. At the middle of the ring, Go is standing there with his arms crossed. Sagat rushes up to him, throwing every punch he can and missing him every time.

“Does this look familiar?” Go reminds Sagat, but doesn’t pay attention and tries to punch Go again, but this time Go squeezes Sagat’s hand tightly, hurting him.

“The only way you can ever punch me. Is if you like me.”

“I WILL NEVER LIKE YOU!!!” Sagat shouted.

“Well, you’re never going to punch me then.” Go lets go of Sagat’s hand and causing him to fall on the floor.

As Go walks into the school building, Sagat holds the hand that was gripped and punches the stone floor with it. His hand bleeds and he grips it tight as he stares at Go in rage. He punches in the air aiming at Go and the blood from his hand hits the building and Go’s back.

* * *

The next morning, everyone is asleep on the floor within the building. Several teachers walk in shouting at the sleeping students to wake up. Sagat gets up slowly and begrudgingly goes outside to deal with Go again. When he got outside, he decides to just get it over with and meet up with Go for the morning spar. He walks around trying to find him. After a minute, he’s isn’t able to find him. Sagat finds this to be odd and just shrugs it off. He just heads into the jungle to do some exercises but was halted by a teacher.

“Sagat!” called the teacher. Sagat turned his back and looked down at him .”Boon-Nam is sick. He might not come back for a while. We need you to teach the children.”

“Alright.” Sagat complied. Knowing that saying ‘no’ isn’t going to end well. It was probably the cause Boon-Nam’s supposed illness, a permanent case of _not ending well_.

Sagat goes behind the school building where the younger students are taught. As he approaches Boon-Nam’s students, he notices they’re nervous at the sight of Sagat. Seemingly impressed and intimidated by his height and reputation.

“Uh, okay.” Sagat starts his instruction. “We-WAIT!” Sagat notices among the group of students is Go sitting down next them. “Why the hell are you with the kids!?”

“Because I just got here yesterday and they made me be here” Go answered.

“You can’t be serious…”

“We have to start somewhere! Come on Mister Sagat! Teach us something!”

Sagat’s more cynical mood just gone more aggressive. He tries to think up what to teach. “Well uh, y-y, you see. Uh. Uh. You uh. Um. W-w-where d-do we, d-do we begi-” Go raised his hand.

“Mister Sagat, I like Porky Pig too, but I don’t think that’s going to be useful in academia.”

Sagat grumbles. He maintains his aggression and keeps his cool. “I perhaps have something special. Something revolutionary to show you children. I would need a volunteer…”

The students are nervous to be a volunteer, except for Go who’s ecstatic, waving his raised arm. “OH PICK ME! Pick me! Pick meeeeee!”

Sagat shakes his head. “Go, come here.”

“Oh my goodness! He picked me!” Go campily prances next to Sagat.

Sagat picks up a small stone next to his foot on the ground. “Let me tell you about rage. It is a great weapon. A weapon that all warriors use to achieve their ideals.”

“And also how their ideals fall apart.”

“You are not entirely wrong…”

“I know.”

“In fact, we’re going to prove that right now...” Sagat intensely scrapes his middle knuckle with the stone causing it to bleed.

“Is that appropriate to show to the kids-” Go notices a blood stain on his chest. “Huh?” When Go looks straight ahead, he sees Sagat’s fist near his chest. Go quickly grabs it and holds on to it tight. “Well, well! That was clever! But, my ideals aren’t of rage… Nor was your tactic…” Go lets go of Sagat’s hand and sits back down with the students.

“The purpose of that was uuuh.” Sagat tries to come up an excuse. “To show how you can’t use cheap Japanese tricks…” Go snickers. “Against a Japanese person… The one I just used was an old uh, ninja’s technique… Ain’t that right Go-?” Go laughs hysterically.

* * *

 Later in the evening, it rains. Sagat is alone at the ring, contemplating. He reflects on every time he throws a punch at Go and realizes can never hit him. Distracting him doesn’t work. The only the choice he has is to overcome Go’s reaction time. Sagat figures out improve his punch speed and precision. He sees a tree nearby with thick layers of leaves. Under the branches are dry grass, with several rocks. Sagat goes up to that area and grabs a few rocks  and holds them tightly in his hands. He keeps a good distance between himself and the tree. He focuses on the tree trunk and the raindrops around him. Sagat tosses a single rock at the tree and when the rock pierces the trunk, a line of water slides along the trunk from the rock.

Sagat is unsatisfied with this because he’s trying to to toss the rock into the trunk without getting it wet. Sagat proceeds to try again and again. When he runs out of dry rocks, he searches for more, even going as far to find seeds or acorns. Even when he succeeds at keeping the object dry, he’ll keep going at it. Sagat does this entire during the entire time it was raining, which was the majority of the night.

* * *

 In the morning, during the spar. A student was knocked into the trunk Sagat was practicing on, strangely shouting in pain. The student stands up and has several rocks pierced into his back. The student takes out several of the rocks, turns around and sees the entire tree covered in rocks. His opponent runs up to him also impressed at the sight.

Another student approaches the two sparring students staring at the tree. “Hey guys! Didn’t you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“That if you defeat Go Hibiki today, we get a reward!”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, Ukrit is gonna get us a free prostitute!”

“Really!? Lets kick his ass!”

Students of all size and ages, even teachers, are charging at Go HIbiki, who casually knocks out each opponent in one strike. Go utilizes nothing but Muay Thai and despite this shift in fighting style, he’s still defeating all the opponents with ease. This goes on for thirty minutes, where Go essentially took on everyone but Ukrit, several of the other teachers and Sagat. Only a few students tried again to defeat Go, but failed.

Go stretches his back. “Okay, seriously. When does the marathon start again?” Sagat walks on to the ring staring down at Go. “Oh. It begins now.” Sagat gets into his stance. “Sagat. All you have to do is like me. That’s when I can show you how you can punch me.”

Sagat didn’t pay attention. He walks up to Go, not attacking. Go doesn’t attack back. What happens instead is that Sagat is just pushing Go forward. Go shrugs and throws a punch with a closed fist. Sagat quickly counters by aiming to throw an uppercut at Go’s arm. Go purposefully falls to the ground and rolls to the side, thus Sagat missed attacking Go. Sagat doesn’t make an attempt to stomp as he cares to punch him. Go quickly stands up and the two fighters maintain each other’s space, not throwing any punches. Sagat ducks forward and Go steps to his side. Go lifts his leg, Sagat counters by attacking his shin with his elbow, but Go drops his shin, preventing his shin to be attacked. Go circles around Sagat throwing a few right hooks, one at his hip and the other at his back. Sagat does squint in pain, but isn’t frustrated.

Ukrit is watching from the building’s entrance. He signals to the students next to him to start playing music. Ukrit watches the match intensely. The students play the traditional muay thai music.

Sagat continues his tactic on trying to get close to Go, waiting for him to make another attack. Go notices this strategy and tries to hop back ward from side to side to tire Sagat. As Sagat sweats, Go quickly shoves his knee at Sagat, of which was countered with Sagat pushing Go’s knee. Go lands on his back, and Sagat let his body collapse performing an elbow drop. Go rolls out of the way as Sagat lands his elbow on the stone floor. Go gets up as does Sagat looking more angry.

Go shakes his head in disappointment. “Sagat, please calm down.”

Sagat charges into Go pushing him a bit. Go fumbles and had hope. Sagat then charges a fist of rage again and go grabs his arm, elbows Sagat’s cheek, lets go of the arm and jumps up kneeing Sagat in the chin. Sagat kneels grabbing his face. Go keep his distance. Sagat looks at the blood in his hands. He sees Go as the tree trunk. Sagat tosses the blood from his left hand quickly while simultaneously lunging his fist from his right hand at Go as close to the speed of the blood as he could. Go smiled, his face was hit with blood, and dodges the fist barely and hits Sagat’s forehead with his hadouken. Sagat falls on his back, not even knocked out. He looks up at the sky feeling hopeless. He thought he had it figured out.

An elder teacher approaches Sagat. “Do you give up?”

Sagat closes his eyes. “Yes…”

Ukrit applauds and laughs. Go rushes up to Sagat still laying on the ground.

“Sagat!” said Go. “You don’t have to give up, you had it figured ou-”

Ukrit puts his arm over Go and grabs him. “AH HAA! I knew I was right to have you as my student” He takes Go inside the building. “Come! Let's have a special lunch together!”

Students walk pass Sagat, none really saying anything to him directly but Sagat can hear the disappointment in the distance such as: “Man, can Sagat get any lower? He let a foreigner be Ukrit’s favorite student!” and “He maybe still scary! But he’s still such a loser!"

Go is taken inside a room where the Kaewraska family is sitting at a table, including Sakda. Go takes a seat near them and Ukrit sits next to Go.

Ukrit pats Go’s back. “Not many people can personally dine with me! You are a prodigy! You just got here and your muay thai skills are already amazing! I should of adopted you over that disappointment Sagat…”

“Well,” Go admits, “I wouldn’t call Sagat a disappointment. He’s still very talented. Plus, my dad is still alive...”

“AH! Don’t be so humble. Anyway, you’re going to have the finest food in the world and you get to dine with the man who helps promote my school. Sakda Kaewraska.”

Sakda offers Go a handshake, of which Go unwillingly does shake his hand. “I love a kid with a good grip. I usually hate foreigners. But, I make the Japanese an exception.”

“Yeah!” Ukrit agrees. “I probably was your old man’s close friend back in World War II!”

Two Thai women in skimpy dresses bring in plates of cooked tiger meat to them. Go was grossed out.

“Well,” Go try to continue the conversation. “Did he look like me but with bigger bulging eyes?”

“Nah, I don’t think I was allowed to work with jews.” Sakda and his men laughed.  
“Oh ha ha I get it.” Go annoyed with Ukrit and his friends.”I never heard that one before…”

“But come on, I can still make you an unofficial son! We can live like kings!”

“Well, I can’t stay here for long. I might have to leave soon, my wife is pregnant.”

“AH! So you aren’t much of a boy after all! Ah ha ha! I have a hunch your boy is going to be the top tier of fighters to the point where he should be banned like a winter bird in a dog fight!” Ukrit hunches over to the Kaewraskas “Unfortunately he might inherit his looks.” Everyone laughs.  

After they were done laughing, everyone but Go was munching on the tiger meat, who was pretending  to eat it as he feeds it to a nearby Monitor Lizard that just happened to have.

Sakda stops eating briefly, “Go. If Ukrit says you’re top stuff. I believe him. I’m not going to argue with him about it. But, I don’t like that humbleness. Muay Thai is a man’s sport. The thing is Go, reputation is important. My reputation is above many and let me tell you, When bad things happen to my reputation, I make sure I… Fix the causation, lets just say.”

Go has a puzzled look on his face. “I don’t quite follow…”

“Just eat your tiger meat and stop feeding it to the lizard.”

“HA HAA!” Ukrit laughs.”He’s so nice! He’s even charitable to animals! If you weren’t so talented, I would of killed you by now!” Everyone in the room laughs but the women and Go.

* * *

 Later at night, Sagat returns to the Buddhist temple, meditating in front of the statue of Buddha. Sagat reflects on Go, assessing him and compares him to the peers around him. He remembers the embarrassing moments Go has to done to him and compares this to how his students and Ukrit treats him. As Sagat continues doing this, he starts to understand something about Go. He does so seem to genuinely care and willing to help him out. As much Sagat doesn’t want to admit it. He has helped him improved. Sagat even chuckles at some of the silly moments he had with him. He notices his own amusement and then considers Go’s word’s more seriously. Go gets out of his meditation and stands up. Staring at the statue of Buddha. A monk walks up to next to him and taps on his arm.

“Are you planning to become one of us?” The monk asked.

“Hm?” Sagat turned his head to the monk, not quite understanding what he meant. The monk chuckles pointing his own bald head referring to Sagat’s baldness. Sagat stares at the statue again and smirks.

Back at the school, Go is vomiting at a bush. “Damn it!” He wipes his mouth. “Do I have to have tiger, twice!?” Go turns around and sees Sagat behind him. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Why do you care about me so much?” Sagat asked. “Why are you going through so much trouble?”

“Because I can.”

“Come on! There has to be more to it”

“You’re right… But answer my question first. Why do you stay here? You’re the best student around and they treat you like crap! Why do you persist on going through the pain?”

Sagat struggles to answer. “I-I don’t know… I was adopted by Ukrit when my former adopted father died… I… I guess owe him.”

“Alright. That’s not a good reason, but I get it. Lets sit.” Go and Sagat sits on the grass. “I’m here on a mission from my master. You see these beads? I essentially graduated. Anyone who gets these must now fulfill their duty to become a teacher. Let me be honest with you Sagat. I traveled all over the world and I have never seen such strength, such skill. You have one thing that’s holding you back…”

“What’s that?”

Go stands up and gets into his Ansatsuken stance. “You know what it is.” Sagat stands up and gets into his stance. “A punch, doesn’t just mean your fist. I noticed your little trick you tried to pull earlier. It’s impressive. You’d be talented using,” Go pulls his arm back and thrusts it forward “this!” Sagat steps aside of the Hadouken blast. “Instead of doing it with just one arm, do it with your two fists pushed forward. It will complement your style.”

Sagat pulls both arms back, he breathes, and focuses. Thrusts it forward. Nothing came out.

“Try again, kid- _do!_ ”

Sagat does it again, and again but faster, and again. Sagat breathes heavily in frustration.

“Sagat…! Calm down… Let it all go… You know _he_ wouldn’t agree.”

Sagat understands what Go means. He has to agree with him. He closes his eyes and his arms spread but, but his fists still closed. He breathes in and pulls his arms back. He exhales, and slowly pushes arms forward. He does this a few more times. Sagat opens his eyes and stares at Go. Sagats pulls his arms back and his hands to start to glow. Sagat thrusts his arms forward.

 

**“TI-** **_GER!!!_ ** **”**

 

A yellow crescent of energy shoots out from Sagat’s two fists, rushing toward Go. It hits him in the chest and knocking him on his back. Sagat was happy that he managed to utilize chi, but immediately was worried and runs over to Go. He sees him lying unconscious and then immediately Go’s body jolts up.

“ALRIGHT!” Go jovially shouts. “I’m leaving!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading the current chapter of Saikyo: Tiger! I hoped you enjoyed it.
> 
> If you're in a helping mood, I'm in a search for a beta reader at the moment. Just someone to look over the drafts of the chapters and give their thoughts and suggestions on what they think. Looking over for spelling and grammatical errors is appreciated.
> 
> If you want to be the beta reader for this fanfiction all you need is a good understanding of the Street Fighter Lore (which I assume you have, or otherwise, why are you here!?) and a good sense of humor.
> 
> If you're up for the task, either send me a private message or make a comment and we can discuss from there.


	4. Paving the Path

“Wait, you’re serious!?” Sagat bewildered.

“Yeah,” Go confirmed as he stands up. “I promised, didn’t I?” Go marches out.

Sagat is stunned at Go departing. “W-wait!” Go stops and turns by sliding with one foot on the ground and the other lifted up. “I was wrong about you. I don’t think you’re that bad. You taught me more than I expected. I uh. I’m sorry. I just… Didn’t have that feeling of being cared for in a long time…”

Go smirks and stands like a normal person. He pats Sagat’s arm and laughs. “I’m a weirdo, but I’m not that big of a weirdo. I will have to leave soon, but not now. I’ll get to as to why in a second, for now anything I’m going to teach you isn’t fighting related.”

“It isn’t?”

“There isn’t much to teach you when it comes to fighting. Granted we’re always learning, but the advice you need isn’t fighting. It’s purpose. Let me ask: do you like fighting?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you like fighting?”

“Because... It’s fun.”

“What do you want to do when you get out of here? What do you want to do in general?”

“I… I’m not quite sure. I may not have a goal…”

“Yeah you do. It’s aching in your heart.” Go picks up a stick from the ground. “To help find it. You need to lay it out,” Go draws a line on the dirt, “a path. This is challenging. I haven’t figured out my path until 9 months ago. I was when I became a man.”

“What is this path Arjan Go?”

“Don’t call me Arjan. But I appreciate the formality. Call me...  _ sempai _ .”

Sagat and Go remained silent. “I think I’ll just call you Go.”

“Good with me. Anyway… This requires context so I hope you like long stories.”

Go narrates the context. “It was roughly a year and a half ago. Me, my grandpa and my two cousins were on a boat to Hong Kong. An unauthorized boat. A canoe. Paddles and everything. We were on our tour to fight the best fighters from all over the world. It was at the dead of night, no moon or anything.” 

“Naturally like any sane person I was hesitant. ‘Grandpa, I think we should of  just taken a plane.’”

“Grandpa was stubborn,. ‘Bah! You’re not getting out of your exercises.’”

“‘That’s not my concern.’ I respect my grandpa, he may be wise, but he can be an ignoramus at times.”

“Me and my cousin Gouken knew what’s up. I didn’t know why we went with his plan, he’s old, but he’s been in World War I. I think he’d know how this stuff goes. So maybe, just maybe he had some relevant military connections that aren’t just his mahjong buddies. However, giant spotlights immediately turned on. As our vision settled in on what happened, our worst fears came true. The Navy is here and their patrol officers were on motor boats approaching us.”

“The officer was shouting into a megaphone, something along the lines of, ‘You’re have trespassed territorial waters, put your hands up now.’”

“Me, Gouken and Grandpa did just that but Akuma on the the other hand was like ‘You want a piece of me weaklings!? I can take you all on!’”

“‘SHUT UP AKUMA!’” Me and Gouken dog piled on Akuma.”

“We were taken in one of the carriers. A man in a suit, I guess a Naval Officer was asking us questions, essentially our names. Grandpa said his name was Goutetsu, Gouken said his name, I said mine and I think the guy thought it was ridiculous that our names all begin with “Go.” He even made a deadpan joke calling Akuma ‘Gouken’, but y’know how that punchline goes. Though, I don’t know why my uncle named him Akuma. Anyway we were asked other questions.”

“‘Where were you going?’ The Naval officer asked.”

“Grandpa opened his mouth. ‘To Hong Kong. We’re challenging the best martial artists from all over the world.’ Man, I remember the officer’s face. He was not having it. He saw us as nuts. I mean we’re all in dressed in colorful gis and everything.”

“I had a hunch we were going to jail. However, another officer came in and brought in my tengu mask from the boat. The officer didn’t say anything to us afterward. It wasn’t until we were just about to be deported back to Japan was when they told us we were going to to be put in a psychiatric ward. I guess we are kinda mentally ill? We just took a canoe ride to Hong Kong and my maternal family lacks a surname. But we did get sent there, did their usual thing of the nurses patronizing us and taking us to our rooms. We thankfully had a sort of recess where we were in a room where the other patients are at, I guess being able to communicate each other or whatever. Me and my family were all at the room and there was a giant window that showed a forest. Plus, we were a good 30 miles away from our home. We all kicked at the glass window at the same time and ran like hell. Of course, security took notice and tried to stop us. We were out running them, but of course Akuma had to be an asshole and try to challenge the guards. He got hit with a tranquilizer. I had to be the one to pick his ass up and we had to get up on to the trees so we don’t make any footprints along the way. I will say one good thing about not having a surname and me not saying my surname. It makes it harder to find us.”

“We did eventually get back to our home, the Ansatsuken shrine. It didn’t seem like the tour was going to happen until we finally get some passports and pay for plane tickets. Which could take a while. But luck was on our side. Our friend Retsu from the nearby Buddhist temple received a letter for Gouken. Oh yeah, we don’t have a mailing address either, go figure. Anyway, the letter is from a close friend of ours, Daniel Masters, who is coming back home from the Vietnam war and wanted to visit us soon. Danny is a rich guy, so he can help us with our tour. Which he did.”

“Now this is part of the story that’s important. Hong Kong. There was some strange kumite thing going on, where a mysterious fighter was knocking people out of the building and the winner would received 25,000 dollars. I was around that area at that time and hey. How can I resist an easy 25,000 bucks? Well I got in and I saw a brief glimpse of a Bruce Lee, who gave me the one inch punch knocking me out of the building. The most beautiful lady accidentally stepped on my balls with her heels. She was a reporter getting the scoop on the hit Hong Kong superstar, Bruce Lee, beating up random strangers. Her name was Lei-Hua.” Go takes out a of photo of him holding her on a ferry around Kwun Tong. Lei-Hua looks very similar to Ran Hibiki from  _ Rival Schools/Project Justice _ , same face, similar hair except Lei-Hua’s is brown with a a strand of hair pointing out like Dan Hibiki. Unlike Ran, she wears large round glasses and era appropriate clothing. Go shows the photo to Sagat.

“She’s not that pretty” Sagat admitted.

“Oh screw you Sagat.” Go lightly punches Sagat’s chest and puts his photo back in his gi.

“Granted, I don’t like dating. With women or men.”

“Well rule number 1 my friend: don’t insult a man’s girl.”

“She looks like a woman to me.”

“ANYWAY.” Go continued his story. “I was weirded out by her at first, she was very apologetic, crying, then immediately stops crying, like just seizes her tears and then picks me up and asks how I felt about Bruce Lee kicking my ass in one punch. You’re not gonna guess what I did next? I ran away! Now, one thing you’ll learn Sagat, that women play hard to get and they play hard. She could asked the hundreds of other guys that got their asses whooped or hell interview Bruce Lee himself! But because I didn’t give her the interview, she’s out for blood. I think I climbed a building or something at one point and she climbed too! Like, okay. This is gonna end with someone getting killed, like an old lady or something. So I decided to have a little fun, see how much she really wanted that interview. I told her, I’ll give her the interview, if we go out to dinner. I tried this stupid tactic all the time to pick up chicks at high school. It never works, so surely she’d get off my back then? WRONG, she said yes.”

“I’ll be honest. I was nervous. I had to go out to dinner with a nut. I could just, not go. I was about to do just that. But, I felt bad and decided to just go through with it. We went to this okay restaurant and I gave her the interview. I did exaggerate a few things, but hey, she got to make a column to make up for not interviewing Bruce Lee  _ somehow _ . We get to know eachother better, she’s an aspiring journalist wanting to be the best in the world. She was a real cutie and has some ambitious aspirations. I’m just a guy who likes to fight. But she digs that thankfully, maybe it’s the chopsocky trend. Maybe she just like dudes punching. Regardless, we find each other fascinating. I was charmed by her. So, I guess we decided to get to know each other more, I helped her with some of her reports and I showed her my training. As time goes by, we felt something… I don’t know, something special I guess? Uh well, this was around the time when I was about to face the infamous Gen, an ex-assassin.”

“On the day when me and my family were about to fight him, I was late. Akuma was like ‘Where the hell is Go? Why is he always late!? This is our big match!’ I believed they were going to start without me, but I made it at the last minute, breathing heavily. Akuma even shook me and asked “Where the hell have you been!?”

“I said ‘Oh, uh I just got married.’”

“Akuma was surprisingly upset ‘and you didn’t invite us!?’”

“I simply answered, ‘Well, yeah. We didn’t have our wedding yet, we just went to court.’”

“It was adorable. Akuma didn’t understand marriage, he thought the ceremony was mandatory. Prior to that, getting married wasn’t easy. I had to deal with Lei-Hua’s dad. He didn’t like me. Dad’s are always protective of their little girls and he was no different. He’s an ex-thug and a World War II veteran, fighting against the Japanese in Nanking… Yeah. When he first saw me, he put his revolver right up against my nose telling me to never see Lei-Hua ever again. Lei-Hua wasn’t having any of this, begging her dad, crying. He was stubborn, but hell hath no fury like a woman and Lei Hua yelled with great passion giving her dad the most intense pointing I have ever seen. That got him to intimidated and when he had dinner together, he didn’t mind me too much.”

“A few days later, a day before I fight Gen. Lei-Hua’s dad was urging me to not fight Gen. I told him not to worry, I’m a legitimate trained fighter. But apparently, he had some personal connection to Gen. His brother was murdered by Gen and when he tried to kill him with his revolver, Gen deflected all the bullets and chased him. He was lucky to survive. I wasn’t intimidated. It’s my destiny to become a fighter. I must have the bravery to fight them all. In fact, it got me more pump to defeat Gen, to truly impress my father-in-law and perhaps avenge his brother’s death. I was up first to fight Gen. He kicked my ass. I did not go down easily, he used one his iconic deadly strikes, the Zan’ei, the strike that killed the brother and I survived it. I was in intense pain, bleeding profusely and I can’t back down until I was truly knocked out.”

“I decided to stay in Hong Kong for a while. I was started to ponder about something. I wanted to become a better fighter. Not for fame, glory or holding the honorary title of being the greatest fighter in the world. I wanted to protect Lei-Hua from all threats. I had to train more, fight the toughest opponents all over Hong Kong. I had to do all that and asked Goutetsu to pick me up when they’re at their last destination, which is here. I didn’t quite realize my passion fully until my wife got pregnant. That was when I knew my path. Where I wanted to go in life…” 

Sagat didn’t knew how to respond. Go continued: “I can help you give you an idea of your path. Tell me about your life.:

“I don’t know where to start.”

“You mentioned being adopted twice. Start with the first time you have been adopted.”

“Long time ago, when I was about a year old. My parents died in a boating accident. I was with them and an Indian hermit found me in the wreckage, crying. His name was Hanan. He was an old man and he raised me. He taught me Buddhist values. He told me to forgive, make peace and respect all life. He passed away when I was six years old. We lived together in a forest, so, I was alone. Lost. Very little hint of society. It wasn’t until I bumped into the polar opposite of Hanan, Arjan Ukrit. He founded me and decided to adopt me. He punished me every time I wanted to practice Buddhism other than as a front for the public. He forces me to be a fighter, he made me eat meat and every time I failed him he would beat and humiliate me. When I was 10 years old, he made me fight a tiger and took me 2 days straight to finally kill it. Part of me was conflicted. I was becoming everything the man of benevolence try to prevent me from being. I didn’t know what was right or wrong anymore. I still visit a Buddhist temple on occasion. To see if I’m taking the right path. The path of rage or the path of peace. I just don’t know anymore. What is the right way to live? It’s something I’ve been asking myself for a long time…”

Go understands Sagat’s predicament. He took a few minutes to think about it. “It’s not my job to answer that question. But you must ask yourself, deep down. Do you want to be a fighter or do you want to be a monk? You mentioned that you have fun fighting. You don’t have to quit it.”

“Even if I might want to be a Buddhist?”

“Well. I don’t know honestly. But why stop doing what you enjoy? You know what you really need to do?”

“What?

“You should leave Pha-Yak. Become your own fighter, be independent. Who is going to stop you?”

“Wait. Hold on. Look, I’m frustrated with Pha-Yak. But I can’t deny that they crafted me into the great fighter I am today.”

“I’m a better fighter than you and while I was trained under strict conditions and discipline. It was nowhere this cruel. Trust me, you don’t need them.”

“You told me, I have to craft my own path and it just seems like you’re crafting it for me.”

“I was merely giving you a suggestion.”

“And you know, how do I know this whole time you’re manipulating to get me into Ansatsuken?”

“I don’t want to teach people Ansatsuken and no matter who great one’s training methods are, a good father doesn’t kill their child, solely because they lost!”

“What are you saying!?”

“Sagat. I want you out of here because Ukrit is planning to kill you.”

“What proof do you have that he would do this?”

“You know that’s not out of his character to do this. Look. I can’t be here forever. Maybe I shouldn’t choose the path for you. I suggest you start paving your own path and pave it soon.” Go walks away, exiting the Pha-Yak school.

Sagat gets frustrated. Conflicted. He truly doesn’t know if he would of still be a fighter if he was never raised by Ukrit. He punches a few trees in rage and rests his arm on a tree, as well as placing his forehead on the arm. He thinks about his situation. With Go gone, Ukrit is going to think Sagat got him to leave. In addition, Ukrit mostly cares about his own reputation than Sagat, something Go feels the opposite. He cares about his future and his well-being. Sagat goes back to the ring. He takes off his mongkol and blasphemously drops it on the floor. He stomps on it, creating a massive crack on the ring. Sagat leaves the ring and the school altogether.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading the first chapter of Saikyo: Tiger! I hoped you enjoyed it. 
> 
> If you're in a helping mood, I'm in a search for a beta reader at the moment. Just someone to look over the drafts of the chapters and give their thoughts and suggestions on what they think. Looking over for spelling and grammatical errors is appreciated.
> 
> If you want to be the beta reader for this fanfiction all you need is a good understanding of the Street Fighter Lore (which I assume you have, or otherwise, why are you here!?) and a good sense of humor. 
> 
> If you're up for the task, either send me a private message or make a comment and we can discuss from there.


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